


It ended with a red backpack

by smileyrametta



Series: Tumblr Ficlets [3]
Category: SKAM (Italy)
Genre: M/M, bi!elia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-10-06 07:57:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17341571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smileyrametta/pseuds/smileyrametta
Summary: Elia couldn’t believe how easily his friends complimented Nico, and jealously burned through him. It wasn’t fair, nothing was fair.





	It ended with a red backpack

Since he could understand what romantic or sexual attraction meant, girls were the obvious choice. What was not to love about them? They had lilting voices that brought about fits of butterflies fluttering about his stomach. As he grew older the butterflies melted into lust as he imagined the luscious curves hidden under their clothes. He thought about using his strong hands to trace the glorious curves of their hips, their breasts, their thighs.

There was a reason why painters from long ago created so many works depicting the female form, it was a work of art. When he kissed a girl for the first time her lips were soft against his, tasting slightly of strawberries, and it was glorious. A little awkward, sure, neither of them quite knew where to place their hands, so they kept them at their sides. Later they kissed again, and with a little boost of confidence on Elia’s part, he slipped a hand on her waist and one at the nape of her neck, the way he had read online that girls liked.

He could feel the curve of her waist under his hand, and the softness of her long locks beneath his fingers, and he thought that no one could want anything more than what he had, girls. He and the girl didn’t last longer than the summer, but then high school was upon Elia, with more girls than ever and so many beautiful, gorgeous faces to see.

It all felt right with girls, he could offer up his thoughts to his friends and they would nod in agreement.

“Did you see the new girl yesterday, she’s gorgeous,” Elia would say one lunch time, and his friends would nod.

“She’s super hot,” Luca would say, “do you think I should ask her out?”

They would fall into peels of laughter at that, the taunting, the teasing, it all clicked into place and still he wondered what more anyone could want other than soft skinned, flowery smelling girls.

But thoughts at night were not privy to what was easy, what fell into place without trying. Thoughts at night believed that what Elia needed to imagine was the hard, flat planes of a chest, stubbled cheeks and wide shoulders. Those thoughts were hard everywhere, hard kisses, hard chests, and as much as Elia tried to ignore, hard cocks.

The dreams leaked into his every day life, he saw the broad shoulders of boys on the sidewalk, could feel the way Giovanni’s hand on his shoulder was strong and steady, found himself wondering whether boy’s lips would taste of strawberries too.

Those thoughts, no matter if they were as often as those of girls, those thoughts he never voiced. Instead he doubled down on the girl talk, asking them out more often, inviting more girls than ever to the side of the party to make out with. His friends didn’t notice, and he patted himself on the back for being so good at hiding it.

The first time one of the boys didn’t seem to fit into their dynamic, they were all sitting in the bathtub at Fede’s party, cracking open beers. The conversation was, of course, centred on girls and to be fair, there were many extremely hot girls on the roof above them.

The Argentinian, the girl with the blue hair, and many more. And yet, Martino paused at the question of which girl he thought was the hottest, he couldn’t formulate a name. There were so many to choose from, yet the boy seemed flustered and out of his depth.

“The Argentinian”, he finally spat out, the most obvious choice of them all, and the most unattainable. When they shot that down he once again seemed to blank.

But, what did Elia know, Martino was the only one of the four that hooked up with a girl that night. 

It did make him wonder, what if someone asked him about guys? What if out of the blue one of the boys asked their group which boy they thought was the hottest? He had plenty that came to his mind. There was a boy with a red backpack that sat in front of him that had the most gorgeous eyes he had ever seen and who very often twisted around in his chair and asked him if he had a pen.

Then there was the boy who was a year above them who he saw walking into school most days who had this curly hair that flopped down onto his forehead and a beaming smile. Or the boy whose chest and wide shoulders he had seen as the boy changed after gym class, and because his tanned skin was too sensual not to, Elia looked a little too long.

Yes, Elia would have plenty of choices, hell, even Giovanni was hot, there were as many hot guys as there were hot girls. And yet, he could already feel how his words would stick in his windpipe, he could imagine the way his cheeks would heat up under the scrutiny.

The boy with the beautiful eyes sat down in front of him, and mere seconds after slinging his backpack off his shoulders he was turning to Elia.

“Pen?”

Elia nodded weakly, handing over the pen they had exchanged time and time again over the school year.

“Dude,” the boy continued, “your cheeks are flushed like crazy, are you okay?”

 _Shit_ , apparently the imaginary feeling of flushed cheeks wasn’t imagined after all.

“Yeah,” Elia forced forward a chuckle, “I just think I forgot the homework.”

“Oh,” the boy reached a hand into his backpack that matched Elia’s cheeks, “here’s mine, if you write quickly you can probably get it all down before class starts.”

With a jerky nod Elia took the sheet of paper, trying slyly to cover his own homework that was lying in plain sight on the desk.

It only worsened from then, and Elia was forced to spend more and more time pushing the feelings down, only for them to pop up at the most inopportune times, like when he hand his hand down his pants late at night, and he was pushed over the edge by everything that was entirely masculine as well as feminine. He was always left feeling not quite satisfied, as him mine stumbled through what had happened.

The thoughts weren’t going away, Elia realized with a tight chest, so he just avoided them when he could. He revelled in the times when they talked about girls because he could do it in his sleep, and because it was part of the smiles and laughs, they shared as friends.

But at times they bubbled up in odd ways. They bubbled up in the vacant stares that consumed him during class and lead him to scramble to catch up that night. They bubbled up in isolation he felt within their group of friends, but mostly it came up in anger. The fight with Martino was where it came pummeling through his skin and morphed into physical pushes, into harsh, cutting words that were meant to go straight to the core of his straight friend. The friend who was just like everyone else in their country, who didn’t have to deal with the mental anguish he was facing.

He fought as if it was Martino’s fault he couldn’t stop the thoughts and urges within him.

And then, then Marti said it. They were half through their lunch when it came up. Giovanni had forced the two of them to make up, even with the guilt that coursed through him that made facing his own actions even harder.

And then: “that guy, we had a thing.”

\---

“Hey Marti, you know how you like guys? Yeah, I think I like them too,” he wanted to say to the boy. It would be so damn easy to just pull him to the side or go out for a coffee and spill it out, say it for once so he wasn’t alone, and yet he kept his mouth closed.

He hoped somehow Marti would be able to infer what he meant with pointed looks, as if Marti was caring at all what his sexuality was. He was bisexual, he knew that, at least he could say it in his head.

It was a step, and that mattered.

It didn’t matter he couldn’t stomach saying it to his friends, his friends who had openly accepted Martino as gay, no that didn’t matter, even if he felt completely useless. He felt the opposite of Martino, who was brave enough to voice what had haunted him. He felt weak.

The boys even met Martino’s boyfriend at the cabin, and the two were full of smiles. They just completely bursted with positive energy that Elia tried to reciprocate. He really wanted to be all happiness and joy for Martino because he knew how much difficulty he had been facing, and now he was truly all joy and it made Elia’s heart soar. It also made his heart ache and throb in his chest.

He felt awed by how easily Luca and Gio complimented Nico, how easily the phrase “He’s so hot that boy of yours,” slipped from their tongues, how they had the gall to say, “if I were gay, I’d probably want to be with him too.” They had no problems, no internal conflict that stopped them from saying things like that unlike Elia.

Why couldn’t it just be easy for him? Envy burned in his veins.

And then, well, something else happened.

The last day before Christmas break the backpack boy slid into his seat and immediately turned to Elia. “Here you go,” the boy handed over a piece of paper with a broad grin.

“We didn’t have any homework today…” Elia’s voice faded out when he looked at the page, which read, _if you’re not interested, don’t be offended, but here’s my number._

Heat flared in his face again and he found himself a little afraid to look up. When he did, the boy looks back at him from over his shoulder with a look that said, _So are you interested?_

Without thinking, he nodded tightly which made the boy grin and Elia’s heart stutter in his chest.

Elia found he couldn’t even wait until the class ended to text the boy, _ciao_.

 _Ciao_ , he got a moment later, _I’m Gabriel_ , and then _are you sticking around over the holiday?_

When the holiday ended and school started up again, Gabriel and Elia walked into the classroom hand in hand, sliding into seats next to each other, and Elia didn’t really care how long it took him to accept his sexuality, because everything worked out just fine.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on my tumblr @smileyrametta
> 
> Comments are always appreciated!


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